BELLRINGER - REFLECTION 1.6 A great many scientist today worry that most students do not appreciate science. As a result, there are those who worry about the future of science. Although it is true that most young people today don’t care about science, there are some who do. They will obviously become the scientists of the future. Since there will always be at least a few people who are interested in science, why are today’s scientists worried about the future of science? Day 8

V. Science Begins to Pick Up Steam (1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D.) Remember, science slowed considerably at the beginning of the Dark Ages due to the influence of the Roman Empire, which had little regard for science. One reason was the predominant religion of the Romans Empire. Believed in many gods (polytheistic) These gods roamed the universe, alternately torturing or helping humans, depending on their whims. With such religion, there was no reason to believe the natural world could be explained. After all, the gods’ actions were unpredictable. Thus the Romans reasoned that the natural world itself (which was the creation of the gods) must also be unpredictable.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam B. By 1000 A.D., however, Christian scholars began realizing that their beliefs promoted a completely different way of looking at the world around them. 1. They believed in a single God who created the universe according to His laws. 2. Since they believed that God never changed, they realized that the natural laws God set in motion should also never change. 3. As a result, the way the natural world worked could be explained, as long as scientists could discover the natural laws that God set into motion.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam Robert Grosseteste (groh’ suh test’ ee) 1. A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 1200’s 2. Thought that the purpose of inquiry was not to come up with great inventions, but instead to learn the reasons behind the facts. In other words he wanted to explain why things happened . . . That’s the essence of science.

Science Begins to Pick Up Steam 3. Grosseteste taught that a scientist should make observations and then come up with a tentative explanation for why the observed events happened. The scientist should then make more observations to test his explanation. If the new observations confirmed the explanation, the explanation might be considered reliable. If the new observations contradicted the explanation, the explanation was probably wrong. a. As you will learn in the next lesson, that is essentially the method we use in modern science. b. Thus, Grosseteste is often called the father of the scientific method, because he was the first to thoroughly explain and use it.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam Dietrich Von Freiberg 1. Grosseteste applied his scientific method to the problem of explaining the rainbow. 2. Although he never developed a satisfactory explanation for the rainbow, a Roman Catholic priest who lived roughly 50 years later, Dietrich Von Freiberg, build on Grosseteste’s work and was able to offer an explanation of why a rainbow appears in the sky. 3. Because of that, Von Freiberg is often called “the priest who solved the mystery of the rainbow.” Next year you will learn how rainbows form!

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam Roger Bacon 1. Was a follower of Grosseteste, and sometimes given the title of the father of the scientific method in error. a. He tried over and over again to use science to break the shackles of superstition. b. Ex. Conventional wisdom in Bacon’s day was that a diamond could be broken only by the application of goat’s blood. He showed experiments that showed goat’s blood had no effect on diamonds.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam 2. Bacon also was a devout Roman Catholic, and believed that science could prove Christianity. a. He thought that the more people learned about science the more people would learn about God. 3. Bacon, in his writings, also predicted that science would bring about marvels such as flying machines, explosives, submarines, and worldwide travel. People laughed at his ideas back then, but historians today marvel at his insight.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam Thomas Bradwardine (70 years after Bacon – 1300 A.D) 1. Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church a. Questioned much of the Church’s teachings. b. Many historians consider him the first Reformer, followed by Luther and Calvin. 2. Examined Aristotle’s ideas critically. a. Using mathematics and experiments, he was able to show that most of what Aristotle said about motion was wrong. b. Although it took 300 years for science to throw away Aristotle’s ideas about motion, it might never have happened without Bradwardine’s work.

Science Begins To Pick Up Steam Nicholas of Cusa 1. Also a priest in the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-1400’s and became in an influential leader toward the end of his life. a. Believed God was infinite. b. Studied plants and stars, thinking they were the largest (and thus closest to infinite) things he could study. 2. Broke Ptolemy’s geocentric view. a. He believed the earth spins while it travels around the sun. b. Laid groundwork for the scientific revolution that would take place 200 years later.